A tall girl with extremely long auburn hair and piercing black-lashed hazel eyes, pretty if not particularly friendly-looking, stared in a state of horror and disbelief at the words on the email, her head throbbing from more than the music.

How could this happen? She wondered. Not enough that they had taken away her stories on one profile, but deleting her stories under the new one when she had just started it? They had gone too far.

Sobs struck her, exploding from deep within her chest, making her choke. Her life had been falling apart as it is: her sister and father being killed, herself being raped, her brother going mad, her mother hating her, the kids at school hating her (all because she was smarter than they were!)…all she had had left were the stories she published and her fanfictions.

And now the fanfictions were being taken away.

Still sobbing, she began deleting stories with heated intensity. “I can’t take this!” she screamed, hardly aware she was speaking. “I give up! I quit! I quit!”

She dashed away from the computer, rage overtaking her sorrow. She searched frantically for something to destroy. She picked up a half-empty cup and turning it over, dumping the remaining liquid into the sink, and prepared to throw it. But where?

Finally, with no options left, she grabbed a knife. When others were around, she wore a heavy coat, claiming that, as an African, she was ultra-sensitive to the cold. But when she was alone, she shed it, for she was long past the stage when the sight of her own scarred arms frightened and disgusted her. Raising the knife, she began hacking wildly at her body, slashing every inch she could reach, including the veins in her wrists. And as a ballerina, she was very flexible.

But the pain provided no solace.

Whirling around, she began dancing. It was not her usual dancing, graceful and energetic. This was wild, almost crazed dancing, rage and the music controlling her body. She leapt and danced, feverish, not caring where she was going. She caught herself at the edge of her sofa and did a flying somersault, so high and uncontrolled she barely managed to avoid hitting a table. She danced herself into a frenzy, until, finally, the music ended.

She collapsed onto the ground, sobbing and bleeding.

This was not the first time she had fallen, though. She had fallen many times, and always risen again.

This time, she did not rise again.